ABSTRACT
This chapter is designed to provide an overview of the financial infrastructure in terms of financial institutions and markets which conditions the choice of monetary policy strategy for the MENA countries. Section 2 identifies three polar types of monetary architecture together with the institutional and market infrastructure required for each type and the kinds of monetary policy feasible in each case. These polar types represent specific, easily definable points on a continuous spectrum, but individual countries may be situated anywhere along that spectrum. Section 3 introduces a range of qualitative and quantitative information designed to locate countries on the spectrum, and uses it to comment on the MENA countries as a whole. Section 4 uses that information to consider where each of the MENA countries currently fits in this typology. Section 5 summarises the findings and comments upon them.
